HARBOR SPRINGS — Throughout July, Between the Covers will be celebrating two milestones: 10 years of the current ownership and 40 years of the Harbor Springs bookstore.
For owner Katie Boeckl, the time passed has seemed both short and long.
“Like having children, it feels fast and slow at the same time,” Boeckl said.
Boeckl had been working in bookstores since she was 14, but when she was contacted to see if she was interested in buying the store from a previous owner, Boeckl said it still felt like a leap of faith.
Now, 10 years later, Boeckl and the store are celebrating the milestone.
The goal was to have entertaining options for regular customers and weekenders alike — without adding to the employees’ workload too much.
Throughout July — one of the store's busiest months, Boeckl said — there will be daily trivia questions, character dress up contests, pie Fridays and more. There are also in-store scavenger hunts, geocaches with books hidden throughout Harbor Springs, and gift certificate bonus days.
With the events, Boeckl is able to celebrate the store and the many changes it has seen in the past decade. Since Boeckl took over, the store relocated to their current space from a basement unit down the street, and the store has found a great partnership with the Festival of the Book.
Boeckl added that the store has also created close partnerships with Harbor Springs Public Schools, from selling books to giving presentations to classes.
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Boeckl said she likes the small space the store offers, which allows them to carefully curate the available books.
“Because we're only roughly 900 square feet of selling space, we can be picky in what we put on the shelves and it has to be curated to what, A) our booksellers want to sell and feel good about selling, and B) what we know our very frequent customers want to read or what we think we can encourage them to read,” she said.
Boeckl said it’s nice that Harbor Springs is more of a resort town than a tourist town, so many of the customers are people who will be staying for the full summer and visiting often.
“There's a lot more resort families that return every summer, so while they're not full-time residents, they're definitely part-time residents who we recognize and we know their grandkids year to year, and they're here three months and not just for a weekend,” she said. "So it's easier still to have connection with those people.”
Boeckl said she knows Harbor Springs is more a destination than some place you just stop in while passing through, but she encourages people to make the drive to see what the city has to offer, even beyond the bookstore.